In case of reserving or playing back any program in a hard disc recorder, a DVD recorder or the like, it was conventional to use different interface respectively for reserving, playing back, etc. For example, date, start time, end time and channel number are required for reserving a program. Similarly, date, start time, end time and channel number are also required for playing back a program. Regardless of the fact that date, start time, end time and channel number are included for both of reserving and playing back a program, it was necessary for the user to operate using different interface depending on reservation or playback of a program. In other words, it was impossible to use the same interface for different modes of operation.
For solving such problem and realizing a simpler operation, a program reservation and monitoring technology using an electronic program guide (EPG) is proposed recently as disclosed in a Japanese patent publication, JPA11-341371 entitled “Program Transmitting/Receiving System and Program Receiving Equipment” (referred to as a first reference below). Alternatively, a technology for reserving and monitoring a program based on a program data that is distributed as supplemental data of a digital broadcasting as disclosed in a Japanese patent publication, JPA2001-8122 entitled “Receiver for Digital Broadcasting” (referred to as a second reference below).
However, the technologies as disclosed in the above first and second references need to identify a target program that the user likes to reserve or monitor in a predetermined format based on the EPG or the program data. This means that the user needs to follow a predetermined different procedure for the EPG or the program data in order to identify the program. This requires a troublesome operation procedure and may make errors in reserving or monitoring procedure if not accustomed. On the other hand, when identifying the date and time of any program, all of year, month, day and time must be inputted correctly without any failure, thereby making the inputting operation very troublesome and failing to reserve or monitor the desired program in a certain case.